Gouache
Ready to hear my stories with gouache (廣告顏料)?
Everyone starts somewhere…
I still remember the first time I used gauche back in 2019. I applied it on a big canvas, CANVAS!!! I’m shouting because it was so wrong. If you don’t know how wrong that is, let me explain to you. Gauche is water-soluble, which means it never dries out, unlike acrylic. It’s more like thicker watercolor that you can reactivate it with water no matter how long it has been dry. I can’t find a picture to show you how it looked when I applied the first layer to canvas. It simply dripped down and the paint came off wherever my wet brush touched, leaving many white patches. It was extremely difficult to cover the canvas with gauche but my ignorance somehow got me to finish applying the whole layer of turquoise. What a waste of paint now thinking back. Until one day, I was chatting to a friend about how difficult it was to cover the canvas, and she said ‘Yeah, you should use it on paper, not on canvas.’. I was hit by the enlightening thunder and changed to acrylic for further layers. Below is the painting that I used gauche as first layer. It turned out to be ok because I basically covered it all with acrylic afterwards.
Recent days, I’m doing more computer work for the first collection. I knew I need something different to inspire myself. Whenever I lack of inspirations, I change up the mediums and paint on scrap papers. It' gives me freedom not to worry about ruining good paper and helps me to get back to beginner’s mind to just observe how different mediums interact with each other. Last time when I launched my website, I was only doing computer work. I got so burnt-out that I didn’t want to touch my website for almost a year. This time, I’m gonna be gentle with myself and make sure I do it in a more balanced way.
The sketching collection and gray scale paper along with the easel seen above are my first valentine’s day gifts from J-D. Thanks to him for putting me to work lol but I never got to use the rest of dry medium paper after I found painting. I thought I should use wet medium paper (my limited mindset). I did use them to make envelopes for my collectors though.
Some historical photos from my first few IG posts. Did you know I first started with charcoal, then color pencils, and than I started painting. I always seem to have a dark vibe. I’m not sure if it was my years in the UK, my dark grunge days. Or perhaps art saved me from my dark days. I’m attracted to light in the darkness for sure. In the second last picture, I created a collection of bookmarks for my students back then. It was the first time I explored abstract floral. I found so much freedom in abstract, so I haven’t been back to realistic floral ever since.
I’ve been playing with gauche and charcoal on scrap papers or failed past works lately.
I’ve been going heavy with mediums, photo filters, and I’m also heavy with salt in cooking. (A bit too salty tbh)
Who said you can’t use wet gauche on dry medium paper? I’m loving how the colors pop on moody gray toned paper! I added darkness with many different charcoals, graphite and pencils. Can you spot the most subtle leaves with pencils?
Don’t ask me how I know which one to use. I can’t recognize their differences. I just go with instinct and grab a random one.
If it doesn’t feel right on paper, I switch to another one.
That’s how I use them.
Imaginary flower without reference photo: gauche & oil pastel on dry medium paper
Still life caladium Thai: charcoal, graphite, pencil on dry medium paper
I like that gauche kinda just sinked into dry medium paper. It doesn’t flow or pop like it’s on normal watercolor paper.
Looking at it from the front, it’s muted colors. The colors pop only looking at it from side angles. I think it’s so so cool!
Hope you enjoy the art diary this week. The process is what I enjoy the most and I hope you do, too. I’m a firm believer on ‘Progress over perfection.’ I hope it inspires you to start the things you want to do. Just get started. The rest will happen naturally if you enjoy the process. The most important thing is to enjoy the process, not the end result. When we are old and dying, our life experiences would be flashing before our eyes, not the possessions. Thank you for being here with me. Feel free to leave your thoughts below. Sharing my art is the biggest support for me. Bye for now!